During this month commemorating the
90th birthday of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz/Malcolm X we remember the
teaching made popular by him in the broad African American community, “Of all
our studies history is best qualified to reward all research”.

Historical research reveals that Memorial Day was started by black former slaves on may, 1, 1865 in
Charleston, S.C. to honor 257 dead Union Army soldiers who had been buried in a
mass grave in a confederate prison camp. They dug up the bodies and worked for
2 weeks to give them a proper burial , as gratitude for fighting for their
freedom. They then held a parade of 10,000 people led by 2,800 black children
where they marched, sang and celebrated[1].

Amongst those black
soldiers who served in the Union Army was the brave and stalwart freedom
fighter Harriet Tubman, who
drew upon her experience leading 300 enslaved black folk to freedom on the
underground railroad, to act as a nurse, a cook, and a spy[2].

Today we want to
mention however that amongst the soldiers of the 54th and 55th
Massachusetts regiments were black men - Africans and Americans of African
descent, who were Muslims. The historical record shows that on the roster of
those soldiers were 292
listed with Muslim last names”1 namedAllah (that was probably Abdullah), 2 named Muhammad,4 named Hamin, 55 namedHassan. 2 named Naeem, 3 named Rahman, 3 named Shakir, 11 namedSalem, and 82 named Usman.

We also find on the roster of the U.S. army
colored troops, the names of Max Hassan, Barclay Osman, Ewell Hasoon, Edward
Salem, and the Sudanese immigrant Muhammad ibn SaId (known also as Nicholas)[3].
Ibn Sayeed was not only a soldier but a medic, whose life details we have
learned because he actually lived to write an autobiography[4],
copies of which can be purchased today. We salute these black, Muslim, Civil War
soldiers who fought beside their comrades of different faith traditions, as strangers
in a strange land in pursuit of freedom, justice, and equality.

translation: “O Allah forgive our living and our dead, those who are with us and those who are
absent, our young and our old, our menfolk and our womenfolk. o Allah, whomever
you give life from among us give him (or her) life in Islam, and whomever you
take way from us take him (or her) away in faith. o Allah, do not forbid us
their reward and do not send us astray after them, amen”.

Monday, May 4, 2015

A Clash of Extremisms and The Wages Of The Sin Of Irresponsible Hate Speech

Once again the ugly consequences of irresponsible speech designed to inflame Muslim sentiment, have resulted in a tragic display of violence in a clash between extremists. The result was the wounding of a security guard and the killing of the two alleged shooters Sunday night in Garland, Texas. The assault highlighted familiar elements and activities with increasingly familiar results.

The event’s sponsor, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), is a group perhaps better known by its other name, Stop Islamization of America (SIOA). It is an American extreme right-wing organization that describes itself as a "human rights organization dedicated to free speech, religious liberty and individual rights”. However the Southern Poverty Law Center, a credible group that authentically engages in the combatting of hate and intolerance in American society, has long since listed the AFDI as an Islamophobic group under the leadership of two anti-Muslim extremists, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.

SIOA is perhaps best known to New Yorkers for its engineering of sensationalist events surrounding the opening of The Khalil Gibran International School in 2007 (resulting in the unjust targeting of local activist Debbie Almontaser), and Park 51 dubbed the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”, in 2009. The climate of hate generated by the 2009 event reportedly contributed to an assault upon a New York City Muslim cab driver.

The AFDI is the group responsible for the anti-Islam, anti-Muslim subway and bus ads denounced by many New York City elected officials. The Metropolitan Transportation Agency is now contemplating the cancelling of all opportunities for advertisement that might be seen as controversial, which some see as an abridgement of freedom of speech, as the result of the on-going campaign by the AFDI.

Geller and Spencer are openly affiliated with rabid anti-Muslim groups in Europe, like the English Defense League — an offshoot of the neo-Nazi British National Party, reportedly composed in large part of skinheads and white supremacists. The hate teachings of Spencer and Geller mischaracterizing Islam and Muslims have inspired murderous acts. In 2011, Anders Brievik, an extremist in Norway, murdered 77 people including innocent children, after publishing an on-line manifesto railing against multiculturalism, feminism, and Islam. He quoted the two extremists liberally in his maniacal writing.

Geller’s response to the killing of Muslim innocents was to falsely identify the site of the mass murders as an anti-Israel “indoctrination training center.” She also wrote that had they lived, the victims would have grown up to become “future leaders of the party responsible for flooding Norway with indolent Muslims who refuse to assimilate, and who commit major violence against Norwegian natives including violent gang rapes, with impunity”.

The event that served as the venue for the Texas attack was an art contest, with a $10,000 reward for the “best” cartoon caricature of the Prophet Muhammad. Ever since acclaimed author Salman Rushdie, a self-avowed ex-Muslim turned “hardline atheist” wrote the widely-publicized book The Satanic Verses 25 years ago, offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and other sacred personages from the Islamic tradition have inflamed Muslim sentiment in ways that have resulted in the loss of human life and destruction of property, as the result of acts of intentional murder, arson, riot, bombings.

As El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz/Malcolm X would say, the climate of hatred generated by today’s Islamophobes produces 21st century examples of “chickens coming home to roost”. This is the result of the unrelenting attacks of anti-Muslim extremists upon the religion of Islam, and all Muslims except those who renounce their faith and align themselves with such groups as ADFI. The extremist reaction of some Muslims to cartoons and literature openly insulting the Prophet Muhammad with vile, obscene depictions of him and Muslims (have you ever looked at the Charlie Hebdo illustrations, and their denigrating racial and ethnic imagery of people of color?) is a current example perhaps, of this “hate that hate produced”.

By engaging in deliberately provocative speech and actions that target not just Muslim extremists but the religion of Islam and Muslims, Islamophobes are counting on the visceral, violent reaction of a relatively small group of Muslims globally. Islam does not condone the targeting of innocent people of any religion or none for death, even when they engage in acts of intentional degradation of that which 1.5 billion people hold sacred.

The open enemies of Islam and Muslims insulted the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) during his time and he never retaliated against them with violence. Campaigns that denied the Prophet’s mission and demeaned his character were opposed by his followers, but with words, not violence. Whenever the assaults upon their leader elevated to the level of physical actions however, the Muslims acted in defense of their faith and God’s prophet. Our scholars teach us that even today Muslims have a sacred obligation to defend the exalted character of the Prophet (peace be upon him) even as we seek to uphold his prophetic mission. The problem with Muslim extremists is that they seek to do so in ways that exceed the methodology of the Prophet himself (peace be upon him)

Their fellow members of Islamophobic think tanks have undoubtedly briefed Spencer and Geller that extremist violence is not sanctioned by the religion of Islam itself, or by the vast majority of the world’s Muslims. The visceral response of Muslim extremists to attacks upon their faith and its sacred personages is not Qur’anic. It is that of the Muslim “wretched of the earth” identified by psychoanalyst Frantz Fanon last century, in the aftermath of European colonialism of the so-called 3rd world.

In January of this year, Muslims decided to hold a non-violent, public, indoor rally at the same site where last night’s attack occurred. Organizers of the event declared “ Prophet Muhammad inspires love and devotion in the hearts of Muslims, peace be upon him. Unfortunately, Islamophobes have turned him into an object of hate. The fight in defense of our Prophet against the $160 million Islamophobia machine is continuous, and groups like ISIS and Boko Haram only increase the media’s ammunition to incriminate Muslims.

The sponsors called their event “Stand with the Prophet, Against Terror and Hate”, and declared rectification of his image as their goal. Yet upon their arrival at the event, Muslims were greeted by hundreds of people whose perceptions had been informed by the Islamophobic propaganda generated by groups like ADFI.

The propaganda included(s) liberal use of buzzwords and talking points common to the American Islamophobic industry. They called themselves “patriots” and Muslims sponsoring the event “Islamists”, “radicals”, and “Jihadis”. They used buzzwords like “Sharia law” and “ Muslim Brotherhood” (listen to current interviews with Geller). They denounced the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights organization who like all mainstream Muslims of good will , supported the conference .

Islamophobes continue to this very moment to perpetrate the decades old mischaracterization of keynote speaker Imam Siraj Wahhaj as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1995 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. Rather than identify him as one of 171 persons whose names appeared on a flawed list as unindicted persons who “may be alleged as co-conspirators”, they imply that he was involved, just not apprehended. The fact that Imam Wahhaj has never been associated with, accused, alleged, or charged with terrorism or violent crimes by law enforcement officials is never mentioned by them. Rather than be described as an expert witness who testified under oath on more than one occasion in U.S. federal court, as to the illegitimacy of Muslim extremist claims of terrorism as justifiable under the laws of jihad, the imam was called “a close friend of Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman” (indicted on terrorism charges connected with the 1995 bombing)*.

Such lies and distortions as repeated ad infinitum over the years not only by ADFI but news outlets like Fox News and their global media affiliates and various Internet resources, bore fruit. Hateful un-American speech, and placards conveying bigoted, jingoistic sentiments and beliefs were in abundance outside of the venue for the peaceful January Muslim event. Further, the organizers of the event (Pamela Geller was present) decided to counter it and the goodwill it sowed not only with their talking points leading up to it, but by subsequently instituting a “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest” at the exact same venue less than six months later.

Such non-Muslim Islamophobic extremists who not only opposed a peaceful event mostly internal to the Muslim community, but designed a deliberately provocative gathering like the contest, did so hoping to incite an instinctive, unreasoning response not from the moderate Muslim majority, but from an extreme decidedly Muslim minority. The bloodlust of Muslim extremists for those who continue to degrade and insult their way of life and that which they hold dear is rooted in values common to all people – love for their God, their faith, their families, their community, and their nation. But they are equally motivated by hatred of the other (which incidentally includes those whom they victimize - both Muslims and Christians) , as are the Islamophobes.

Imam Abdul-Malik Mujahid, the organizer of the Stand with the Prophet event has said "We need to understand this abuse against the Prophet for what it is: a form of psychological violence intended to hurt and harm. Our response when we encounter such attacks must be to seek God’s forgiveness and respond with what is better: prayers on the Prophet and Duas for him."

In light of the most recent attack by Muslim extremists, the Muslim Public Affairs Council has declared, “Bullets against cartoons are bullets against the Prophet” (Muhammad). They further stated in a publicly released statement, “The perpetrators of this shooting violated the principles of Islam by reacting to offensive caricatures of Prophet Muhammad with far worse actions - the intent to kill. Countering the hate of the organizers and attendees of the event with violence is reprehensible. There are numerous instances in the life of Prophet Muhammad where he continuously responded to insults and hatred with mercy and forgiveness, and sometimes just plain silence”.

These sentiments reflect those of the Muslim mainstream. However groups like the ADFI continue to play “chicken” with Muslim people influenced by extremists in their own camp, and people are dying. The latest tactic of Geller and Spencer , to place their bigoted unrelenting attacks upon a religion and global faith community within a constitutional framework emphasizing freedom of speech, fool no one. Geller is on public record as opposing the opening of Al Jazeera America two years ago
( http://www.usasurvival.org/home/ck07.15.13.html#axzz3ZQcIQcL3), demonstrating that her commitment to free speech is selective at best. No matter, satanic speech is what it is. In America people have the right to speak satanically and others have the right to denounce their words, and those who speak them. After all, the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi parties spew their vitriol here so why shouldn’t Geller, Spencer, and others?

But an observation gleaned from social media is relevant in this discourse. When the Klan and other Christian White supremacists engage in acts of domestic terrorism , it is understood that they neither represent all Americans of European descent, nor all Christians. But why is it that people like the leaders and employees of ADFI don’t extend that same reasoning to Islam and Muslims, when El Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram or whoever else engage in acts of terrorism at home or abroad?

Muslims should remember and obey the Word of Allah, Who states in the Qur’an “ Nor can goodness and Evil be equal. Repel (Evil) with what is better”. (Q 41:34)

However the problem with extremists is that they only listen to themselves. This is evident not only from the rantings of Muslim , Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist fanatics, but also Islamophobes. One thing is certain though. It is a dangerous game of stratagem that both the leaders and employees of ADFI are playing, with the lives of innocents as their kitty. We see this to be so from the Chapel Hill, North Carolina murders.

Human history teaches us that hatred and bigotry are fires that cannot be contained. It is better to extinguish them before they rage out of control. Further as the old saying goes, “people who play with fire inevitably get burned”. This time it was the perpetrators of violence who lost their lives. Usually it is innocent people who are killed. Who is to say who it will be if there are further deaths? People of conscience call upon all extremists to desist from their hateful words and actions. Hateful actions are much worse than hateful words or expressions of speech (like cartoons), of course. But the problem with hateful words is that they influence minds, and always lead to hateful actions.

One wonders if the extremists of the ADFI want to be martyred in the name of their extremist cause, or only want to endanger the lives of innocents? In either case, if so then they aren’t much different from other religious, secular, or atheist extremists, whose actions are loathed by all reasonable people .

*Such tactics are commonplace in the
Islamophobic industry, which delights for instance in identifying the mosque which I serve as religious and spiritual leader as “The Mosque of the Islamic Brotherhood”
(instead of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, Inc.), thus implying a
(non-existent) link between us and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood ( Ikwaanul-Muslimeen, or Society of
Muslim Brothers). Further, they reference our use of the
Ikhwan’s motto while ignoring that is it simply an articulation of universal
Muslim beliefs and values. Ridiculously, Islamophobic writers depict our social
justice activism as unpatriotic, when what we're actually practicing and striving
to follow is the tradition of “prophetic patriotism” demonstrated in the Bible
and Qur’an by Noah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad (peace be
upon them all).

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Like
dark clouds gathering on a stormy horizon, the specter of anger and violence
erupted this week in Baltimore, Maryland, and threatens to engulfthe nation. Once again we have witnessed
images of black youth rioting in urban America.Still pictures and video footage have been broadcast throughout the
nation and beyond, via global media.

When
I was a teenager in the 1960s those same images were beamed into American homes
on seven T.V. channels. Now my electronic remote reveals to me that there are
2,000 channels.The irony though is that
neither the sights of uprising nor their
accompanying narratives have changed in 50 years or more.

On
Monday, April 27th, 10,000 predominantly Americans of African
descent and those in solidarity with them, protested peacefully in the streets
of Baltimore in affirmation of the belief that “Black Lives Matter”, and
protesting the police killing of 25 year-old Freddie Gray. However news
coverage of the event was totally eclipsed by that of nighttime rioters, who
raged, looted, burned, and destroyed public property in the neighborhood where
they lived.

Both
the governor and mayor described the young black men and women as “thugs”.
During a T.V. interview that night, former N.A.A.C.P. president Ben Jealous
called them “our children”, meaning our sons and daughters.Community residents were shown in one video
clip after another, lamenting the destruction of a pharmacy and other
businesses, and an exacerbation of their already poor quality of life. “I hate it,” they declared. “But I
understand”. The fact is that those
Baltimore youth and adults were engaged in the same civil unrest and urban
uprising in the 21st century, as others had done in the 20th
century, and for the same reasons.

On March 19, 1935
rumors of the killing of a 14 year-old Black youth named Lino Rivera by a
Harlem storeowner, sparked a riot on 125th Street in Harlem. Several
hundred unto thousands of black men and women shattered plate glass windows,
fought hand to hand with police officers, threw rocks, stabbed White men, and
fired gunshots with illegal weapons. The incident was then described as “the
worst race riot in Harlem in twenty-five years”.

It was later
discovered that the rumor was false. The boy had been accosted by a storeowner
for attempting to steal a 10-cent pocket knife, and was released after he bit
two of the store’s proprietors during the ensuing scuffle. A high school
student named Lloyd Hobbs was killed as the result of the riotous violence.

On July 18, 1936
The New York Amsterdam News published a 36,000-word report detailing what happened. It was chiefly authored by E. Franklin
Frazier, with such notable contributors as Countee Cullen, A. Philip Randolph
and others. The Am News chose to
print the report in full, which had been prepared by a special commission at
the behest of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Subsequent to its completion however, the
Mayor, now considered one of New York City’s greatest by some, refused to
release it in total.

Then as now, the
reasons cited for the outbreak began with a “long felt hostility towards the
police (NYPD) “, but expanded to include “resentment at the inability to get
economic opportunities in the midst of plenty”. The Commission recommended measures to prevent
and eliminate racial discrimination in employment, encourage improvements in
the system of public relief (i.e. social services, welfare) , the improving of
housing conditions, increase in recreational opportunities for youth, the
hiring of African American physicians in all city hospitals - especially Harlem
Hospital, and formation of a citizen’s
committee to facilitate complaints against the NYPD. (New York Amsterdam News; A Documentary History of the Negro People in
the United States, Vol. 4) These are almost the exact same underlying
reasons and reccomendations currently linked to the revolts in Ferguson and
Baltimore.

An even worse riot erupted in Detroit on June
20, 1943. By the time the violence was quelled, 25 Blacks and 9 Whites had been
killed, and several hundred thousand dollars (in the currency of the time)
worth of property damage occurred. During those World War two years Detroit was
the munitions capital of America, and the city was a cauldron of racial tension
fueled by discriminatory hiring practices limiting the employment of African
American men, who insisted on being hired in factories. During outbreaks of
violence, zoot-suited Black men openly fought gangs of equally tough White men,
in the streets.(A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States,
Vol. 4)

Currently,
national demands for police reform, and the elimination of police brutality and
use of excessive force in the killing of young Black men and women, have
produced outrage throughout the nation.In 1960, the renowned writer James Baldwin wrote,

“The
White policeman…finds himself at the very center of the revolution now occurring
in the world. He is not prepared for it – naturally, nobody is –and what is
possibly much more to the point, he is exposed, as few white people are, to the
anguish of the black people around him…

“One
day, to everyone’s astonishment, someone drops a match in the powder keg and
everything blows up. Before the dust has settled or the blood congealed,
editorials, speeches, and civil rights commissions are loud in the land,
demanding to know what happened. What happened is that Negroes want to be
treated like [humans].” (Fifth Avenue
Uptown, Esquire Magazine, 1960).

During
this past week, the New York Timespublished a report revealing the virtual
disappearance young Black men between the ages of 25 and 54, from the everyday life of American society. The Times article primarily attributes
the disappearance to incarceration, early deaths and higher mortality rates..Where is this outrageous phenomena the
greatest? Again according to The Times,
it is in New York , Chicago, Philadelphia, Georgia (these are four out of the
top five Black population centers according to the 2010 U.S. census), Alabama, Mississippi,
and yes, Ferguson, Missouri.

Throughout
the country, young people are “tired of being tired” of the on-the ground-reality
of all of this. They are expressing their righteous indignation through
hundreds of daily posts on Face Book. Others are in the streets of America in
increasing numbers, responding viscerally to a systemic conspiracy of
consignment to a living death.

The
history of struggle against this oppression is that whenever leaders have
emerged, or do emerge, who can connect with the Black and Brown masses and
inspire and lead them towards effective change of their condition within and
without themselves, those brave men and women are either silenced, killed,
marginalized, criminalized, or otherwise opposed by any and all means. Then
when an outbreak occurs, those in positions of authority in society - the rich
and powerful exploiters of the poor and vulnerable ask, “Where are their
leaders?” As it is written in the scriptures, they are the true purveyors of mischief in the
land, constituting “evil in high places”, operating from a position where we
see them not.

Keen
observers noticed that the same night of the Baltimore uprisings, hurricane
force winds raged off the coast of Alabama (where racism still abounds). That
same night in Louisiana (where last year
a text message from a 15year police veteran officer was made public, declaring "I wish someone would pull a Ferguson on them and take them out. I
hate looking at those African monkeys at work ... I enjoy arresting those thugs
with their saggy pants.") 10 rail cars were blown off an elevated railroad
track, destroying property. No one was killed.

At the same time a state of
emergency was declared in Baltimore, which today remains under a curfew
enforced by law enforcement authorities and the national guard, just like
America’s urban communities during the mid to late1960s. Those of us in the faith community see the
Hand and Will of Almighty God (whom we Muslims call Allah) moving inexorably to
establish justice in the land, by any divine means necessary, as He reveals His
signs calling for a national repentance in America, from the sin of racial bias
and institutional racism.

Benjamin
Franklin is reported to have said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing
over and over and expecting different results." So even as media pundits
ask “When will the insanity of Black riots stop?” One can only think that they
will not until fundamental changes in American society’s inequities based upon
race and class, are eliminated.

Until then religious leaders
(Muslim, Christian, Jewish, otherwise) and politicians can decry injustice and
lament the seeming illogical venting of anger and frustration by young people,
who paradoxically express their despair while longing to live more productive lives
. Most of these young people are still
listening to various leaders encouraging both patient perseverance and adamant
resistance. This was demonstrated in Baltimore when people came out the day
after the riots and cleaned up their neighborhood, and simultaneously stood post
between police and dissenters. Unapologetic gang members, religious leaders
both Christian and Muslim, as well as just plain ordinary folk, affirmed their
commitment to peace, progress, and change.

God bless them, but not all of our youth are resigned to
non-violent resistance in perpetuity, regardless of who does or does not see
their actions as logical. Those who
engage in riotous actions may have never heard of James Baldwin, but they echo
his words in action, if not speech. “The fire next time” he wrote. And God help
us all.

Imam Al-Hajj Talib
‘Abdur-Rashid is the imam of The Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood (Harlem, NYC),
the Vice-President of the Muslim Alliance in North America, and the former
president of the Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan New York